


Tidal Waves

by OurLadyOf



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, FitzSimmons - Freeform, Gen, Hypermasculinity is for Jerks, Loss, Male Friendship, Miscarriage, Perthshire Cottage, Potentially Hopeful Ending, background Huntingbird - Freeform, mushroom soup, trigger warnings apply
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-01
Updated: 2018-09-01
Packaged: 2019-07-05 09:46:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15861165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OurLadyOf/pseuds/OurLadyOf
Summary: In the midst of a tragedy, Fitz learns something personal about Bobbi and Hunter.





	Tidal Waves

**Author's Note:**

> TW: miscarriage, vomit

As soon as he’d gotten her call, Leo Fitz discontinued his mission and headed back to Perthshire where his wife was home alone. Coulson had the decency not to ask questions when Fitz accosted a pilot and took the quinjet that was certainly not meant for acquisition without reason and without excuse. The flight from Australia lasted twenty-one hours, but after the first six, Jemma stopped answering her husband’s calls and messages. 

 

For someone so resilient, her worry was not a good sign. The moment he touched down in the field beside their home, he sped off for the front door and saw it open as Bobbi Morse waited for him across the garden. He hadn’t seen her in ages. On any other day, it might have been a pleasant surprise, but his heart toppled over with the knowledge that it was not a warm welcome, but damning. 

 

_ “You’d better come home in one piece,” Jemma said with a smile with her hands lacing together behind Fitz’s head. “You know how the movies go. Your first mission after finding out your wife is pregnant is the most lethal one.”  _

 

_ He held onto the feeling of the small of her back warming in his hands and the feeling of her hair ticking his mouth as he kissed the crown of her head. “There’s nothing to worry about this time. Just consulting. I won’t even leave the Zephyr.”  _

 

He had held onto that scene with fondness until his mobile rang, having bypassed the do-not-disturb setting with a feature that he programmed in order to be available for her whenever Jemma needed. Her call in the middle of a mission meant urgency, and his heart turned to dust as soon as the thing vibrated in his pocket. People do not call urgently with good news.

 

Bobbi didn’t smile to Fitz as he rushed toward her. She waited, holding a white coffee cup from his kitchen cabinet close to her chest like she was comforting a child.

 

His shaking legs began to tingle and then numb and before he could even say hello, Fitz fell to his knees and dumped the meager contents of his stomach into the rose bush beside the front door. It was a wonder he had made it all the way through the garden without hitting the ground. 

 

Bobbi waited for him to finish hacking before putting a warm hand on his shoulder. “Hey, take your time, okay?” She said in a soothing voice. It was one that he had heard before and hoped to never hear again.

 

“Is she in there?” He asked, but he knew she was. There was nowhere else she might have gone after leaving the doctor’s. He just needed to say something, occupy his mouth before he fell victim to dry-heaving. He hadn’t eaten since he got the call and there was nothing left but bile and not a lot of that remained either.

 

Bobbi handed him her cup of tea and he rinsed his mouth out. “She’s asleep. Has been since she got back.”

 

He breathed as deeply as he could, and the shallow attempt rattled in his chest. There were no words, so he nodded, just satisfied that he hadn’t lost his glasses at Jemma’s feet. 

 

Bobbi urged him up from the ground and the two resettled in the foyer just inside the wide front door of the cottage. “I’m so sorry, Fitz,” she said once she’d took a seat on the bench usually reserved for putting on gardening shoes. 

 

He waved her off with a shrug, squared his jaw, and looked into the floor. If she kept on with this, he would be in no shape to handle himself in front of his wife when she woke. 

 

“Hello, mate.” Hunter stood with his own matching cup in the den, a guest Fitz would have welcomed on any other day along with Bobbi. How long he had been there could only be guessed.

 

It had taken this to bring the two of them out of the woodwork, then? Fitz’s eyes watered, and he coughed to hide his sharp gasp.  

 

“Why don’t you both come inside?” Hunter urged. He moved into the Fitzsimmons’ sitting area and muted the television, which had been playing something about outer space. 

 

Fitz made the journey inside his own home slowly, unsure of whether he could actually make it into another room, one closer to Jemma. Each step hurt more, twisted the dagger in his stomach. That was his living room and the picture of him and his wife on the bookcase, that was the paperback he was half-way through and had forgotten on the side table when he left for Australia, and there in the basket by Jemma’s side of the sofa was the pair of empty knitting needles that had been occupied on the day he left. 

 

He fell into that seat, rifled his hands through the basket, and shut his eyes hard when he didn’t find the yarn they’d chosen together at the crafting store. “Oh, christ,” he muttered, doubling over his lap, eyes covered with the heels of his hands like he could smother his tears before they came to light. His cold wedding ring pressed against his eyebrow.

 

There was movement beside him, and while Fitz had expected it was Bobbi there to comfort him, it was her ex-husband who pulled his arm around Fitz’s shoulders. 

 

“What am I going to tell my mum?” He sniffed through his wet nose. 

 

People said that you shouldn’t announce anything right away, but it was his mum, and it was their secret and she had been so happy she squealed and bought a plane ticket right then.

 

Fitz gagged. 

 

“Bobbi?” Hunter whispered. 

 

She returned with the kitchen bin, and put it between Fitz’s knees. Her hand touched his arm again.

 

“Easy,” Hunter bolstered beside him. 

 

“I’m sorry,” Fitz gasped. “I’m sorry.” He tightened his core in the effort to will himself to stop crying like an idiot. Breathing was ragged, but he opened his eyes to blotchy vision and tried hard to make focus. He had to do better. He had to get a hold on himself. Whatever had gotten him through the last several hours of the flight without falling to bits, he needed to figure out how to harness it again.

 

“I should go see her.”

 

“You should wait,” Bobbi said with firmness.

 

“Don’t wake her, mate.” 

 

Fitz sat up and leaned against his sofa. Sure, they were right. They’d taken care of her so far since he’d been pig-headed enough to go off somewhere and leave her all alone. The mission hadn’t meant to be long, but it was long enough to give way to tragedy. He shouldn’t have left Jemma’s side for even a day. “How is she?” He snatched a tissue from a box on the side table and wiped his face and nose. 

 

Bobbi gave Hunter a look before answering. “She’s upset. She w-she needs you here. I’m sure she’ll be relieved when she sees you.”

 

“She just got to bed, though. Didn’t sleep a wink last night.” Hunter said. 

 

Fitz no longer had a stomach. It had taken off in the direction of the heavens or of hell. He wasn’t sure which way it ended up.

 

“Coulson called us and we were close. In Wales. I picked her up from the doctor’s office while Hunter did some work over here.” Bobbi explained. 

 

“Flowers and the like.”

 

“It’s nice,” Fitz said even though he hadn’t noticed or even looked. He’d managed to pick some of himself up, and maneuvered the unused bin away from him. A wave of sadness crashed over him again, and he closed his eyes hard until it passed. 

 

“Can we have a moment, Bob?” Hunter asked. “Just the lads for now.” 

 

She faked a smile and headed into the kitchen, where it sounded like she was starting to do dishes though it was a wonder there was anything in there left to do. Jemma always kept the cottage tidy. 

 

Hunter leaned back beside Fitz and crossed his arms in silence. The air between the two of them was different. For a while, they stared at the still blue-violet nebula of space that occupied the television and slowly, Fitz caught his breath.

 

“We tried, for a while.” Fitz said. “Even before we moved out here. We thought it was just all the stress.” He sat on his trembling hands. 

 

At first, Jemma had updated him each month. She came to him shyly and shrugged as if it didn’t matter, but when months neared a year, she stopped. There were no more status reports. They stopped trying to make love on specific days and didn’t talk about it any more. He knew she still hoped, even when she didn’t say anything. He’d see discarded tests in the garbage bin.  

 

He didn’t admit to her that he looked at them as well.

 

“She was really happy,” he said. And she had been. It was the best kind of surprise when Jemma’s stomach bug lasted more than one day and when her period didn’t follow. She had come to breakfast and held his hand and whispered the announcement as if it were a precious jewel she was passing through the air or a goldfinch flitting onto a clothesline, one that she was afraid to spook. He’d cried a different kind of tears then, right there at the breakfast table over his pancakes.

 

“I know,” Hunter said.

 

“It’s my fault.” Fitz shook his head. “I hoped too much. I jinxed us.”

 

“Do you want a beer?” He asked, ignoring the admission that Fitz had made. He couldn’t blame him. What a blubbering fool he was making of himself. 

 

He nodded and swallowed. A bad idea, sure, but also the best one that he could come up with at the time. He was not sure he could have solved even a long division equation right then. 

 

When Hunter arrived back, he handed him something Fitz had picked up before he left, a celebratory drink for a mission completed and while he considered changing his mind, it was already in his hand. It was already open. 

 

“Aren’t you going to say how we can always try again or something?” Fitz said to his friend when he resumed the programming and leaned back into his seat and worked on draining his own bottle. That was a false consolation that floated around in times like these.

 

Hunter cleared his throat. “I’d never say that.” 

 

He nodded in response.

 

“Bobbi and I...a long time ago, when we were first married. We didn’t try at all.” He began before taking a long pull from his beer. He looked into the television with a blank look. “But we were excited.”

 

Fitz turned to him, freshly upset. How could he have not mentioned it for so long? Or how could he sit there and tell the story without crumpling like Fitz did?

 

“And Mack as well. A little different in nature, but close to this feeling, I’d bet.” 

 

Fitz grimaced. None of them had been lucky enough to have children, either. Mack and his girlfriend had broken up, and Hunter himself had broken it off with Bobbi in between, too. Loss must follow loss.

 

“I didn’t think I could love someone so much. All of a sudden, she was carrying my hell spawn,” he said with a half-laugh. 

 

What did one say? Nothing made the feeling easier.

 

“She wasn’t far along. It didn’t even hurt that bad, but it did hurt.”

 

Fitz drowned his tears with the deep thick drink that had sat heavy in his hand. His jaw quivered, but he stilled it. “I’m sorry.”

 

Hunter shook his head and took a moment to get a long breath. “I got the snip after.” He said, still looking into the changing picture before them. “I was a coward. We went away on different trips for holiday because we couldn’t talk about it.” 

 

“I’m sorry,” he said again.

 

“You’ve got to stop apologizing, mate.” Hunter said, “because Simmons will do the same and it’s neither of your faults. Why bother getting cozy with that guilt?” 

 

He finished the beer in the silence between them and the low volume of the media in the room. Time passed slowly, and the sound of food being chopped emanated from the kitchen, though Fitz was sure he couldn’t eat a thing. “It’s just that we’re cursed.” 

 

“But I’m not. And neither is Bobbi. So that’s not the reason.”

 

“What do I say to her?”

 

“I can’t tell you that. I did learn that you can’t pretend that you’re not upset about it, too.” Hunter said. A thinly veiled lesson that he must have learned the hard way. That was the only way Hunter learned things.

 

The floor above them creaked, and Bobbi sat down her knife and headed upstairs quickly to intercept Jemma, who must have gone for the toilet.

 

Fitz sat on the edge of his seat, almost ready to jump after her.

 

“Give them a moment,” Hunter reached for his shoulder and settled him back down, but muted the television. 

 

Fitz heard Jemma groan from downstairs and got up, this time with no hesitation from Hunter, and sped up the stairs to find her.

 

Jemma sat on the edge of their bed, Bobbi’s strong form bent over her and grasping her hand. His wife’s white knuckles made Fitz choke.

 

“Hey,” he crooned, coming around Bobbi and pressing her into chest. “I’m here.”

 

She reached for him instantly, dropping Bobbi’s hand and pressing him into a vise. “Fitz, I’m so--”

 

“No,” he interrupted, remembering what Hunter had said.  

 

“I didn’t--” She stuttered over herself. 

 

“You didn’t do anything.”

 

She groaned again and he noticed one pale hand below her belly button, pressing into her core. 

 

Fitz knelt down on the floor, slightly lower than her eye level, and he could see her red-rimmed eyes, which he was sure he mirrored. “Can I get you something?”

 

Bobbi took a bottle of ibuprofen from the nightstand and handed it to him. He popped the top and handed her a pill, and she took it with a glass of water. 

 

When Fitz turned to hand the bottle back, he saw Bobbi was gone and the dagger twisted again. She was right to leave them alone, but he was frightened all the same. “I’m glad to be home with you,” he whispered, hands moving though the rumpled bedding for the hot water bottle she had discarded in coming awake. He pressed it against her stomach.

 

“I missed you,” she said. 

 

He cleared his throat. “Are you okay?” 

 

Jemma sniffed. “I’m not. It feels as bad as I’m sure it looks.” her eyes started leaking. “I tossed that blanket in the rubbish,” she admitted with a bubble in her throat.

 

It had been pale brown, the yarn, and she was going to knit the thing in time for next winter to keep the baby warm. He couldn’t stop his crying either, but wiped his face before she could look at it too long. “I know.”

 

“I’m sorry.”

 

Fitz swallowed and sat on the bed beside her. The spot was still warm from where she had just been sleeping. After the day, after the crashing energy that he had spent, it felt like heaven. “Don’t apologize, Jemma.” He removed his coat and pulled her onto the mattress beside him.

 

Jemma hesitated, but followed, finding a place on her husband’s echoing chest. He felt her shaking.

 

He felt his own shaking. 

 

“We  _ are _ cursed, like you said.” She choked before breaking into sobs against his shoulder. 

 

He pulled her closer into his arms, and rubbed a hand up and down her back. “No, no, not at all.” He tried to comfort her. How had the dagger managed to penetrate all the way through him and work on a second path through his chest? He’d been shot before, but it was nothing close. He struggled, but gave way to the same sobbing as his wife. The two of them wept in concert for so long that Fitz wondered if the two others had left, but the smell of cooking food wafted through the open bedroom door.

 

He thought he had lost all of his tears. It would take an ocean to replenish what hydration they had expelled. His wife had an iron grip on his waist, and his shirt stuck to his stomach with sweat from the water bottle, but he hadn’t even felt that. “You need to eat something.” He said once she had calmed down enough. 

 

She mewled at him in protest, but carefully removed herself from the bed when he coaxed her and she followed him slowly down the stairs. 

 

Bobbi’s head turned when she heard them descend, and she gave a tiny smile. “We made soup. Come sit with us.”

 

It felt like a farce, Fitz thought, to sit at the table with friends and eat soup together, but he did, and Hunter slapped two glasses of water in front of them. 

 

“It’s not perfect, but I’ve been working on it for a while,” Hunter explained as he ladled the thick soup into all four of their bowls. 

 

“Hunter says the secret is sauteing the porcinis with chicken bouillon,” Bobbi half-whispered, “But after watching him for years, I can tell you that it’s really just patience.” 

  
  



End file.
